Day 1 - Flight to Namibia
Begin your exclusive adventure with a scheduled overnight flight from London to Windhoek with South African Airways.
Dinner is included on the flight.
Day 2 - Windhoek
On arrival into Windhoek, your guide will welcome you at the airport and transfer you to a comfortable guesthouse. You may like to take a brief tour of the city along the way. Once you are settled in, your guide will discuss your trip with you and answer any queries you may have. As your flight may land in the afternoon we have not included lunch today, but lunch is available at the guesthouse or at a cafe in town if required. The remainder of the day is free to relax, swim, or wander around the city center as appeals. Dinner this evening is for your own account to give you the flexibility to dine at the guesthouse or choose from one of the city's many good restaurants.
Includes breakfast on the flight.
Day 3 - Namib-Naukluft National Park
Your guide collects you after breakfast to head south-west over the Great Escarpment. After a picnic lunch at a scenic spot on the way, you gradually descend over mountain passes and traverse the Namib Desert's flat coastal plain. You reach Sossus Dune Lodge, situated on the edge of the desert, where you will stay for the next two nights. Arriving in the mid-afternoon, you've time to explore the local area and nearby Elim Dune with your guide as appeals, or just relax and enjoy sunset from your balcony.
Windhoek to Sesriem: approx. 5.5 hours (330km)
Includes breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Day 4 - Namib-Naukluft National Park
Start early to catch the dunescapes of the Namib in the rich light of sunrise. Sossus Dune Lodge offers the only accommodation within the Namib-Naukluft National Park boundary, allowing you access into the dunes well before sunrise when all those staying outside the park can only enter at sunrise. The early start is worthwhile (and a must for avid photographers) so you can reach the dunes when the dawn colours and shadows are at their most spectacular; at times it's all so amazing you won't know where to look first! Explore Sossusvlei and Dead Vlei with your guide, and climb some of the highest dunes in the world before enjoying brunch under a shady camelthorn tree.
Return to the lodge for lunch and relax during the heat of the day or enjoy a dip in the refreshing swimming pool. As the afternoon cools, your guide will take you to visit the nearby Sesriem Canyon; a narrow, eroded gorge about a kilometre in length, dotted with freshwater pools that refill after good rains. Centuries of flooding along the ephemeral Tsauchab River course has carved sinuous curves into the rock, making this a cool discovery on the hottest afternoon. You arrive back to the lodge in time to freshen up for dinner.
Sesriem to Sossusvlei to Sesriem: approx. 2 hours (120km)
Includes breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Day 5 - Swakopmund
After breakfast, continue north through the Namib-Naukluft Park, via the striking Gaub and Kuiseb canyons, and head west to meet the coast at Walvis Bay. Check out the lagoon and some of the other coastal spots here, as you'll often find large flocks of cormorants, pelicans, flamingos and other water birds. The pleasant coastal town of Swakopmund is a short drive away along a tarmac road that runs between the beach and the dunes.
Overnight at one of the town's best colonial style hotels and enjoy dinner out with your guide at a waterfront restaurant. Don't miss the fresh seafood - Swakopmund is famous for it!
Namib-Naukluft to Swakopmund: approx. 6 hours (345km)
Includes breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Days 6 to 9 - Damaraland Mobile Camp
After leaving Swakopmund, head along the desolate Skeleton Coast to drop in on the huge colony of Cape fur seals at Cape Cross, before turning inland to traverse the mountain scenery of Damaraland. Here you camp for four nights, split between two different locations. See the descriptions below for details of these mobile camps. Talk to us, and choose which sites would suit you best: they've all got great scenery and are blissfully remote.
Ugab River Valley
As the Ugab River heads towards the Atlantic, its ephemeral riverbed marks the southern border of the Skeleton Coast National Park. You leave the main road and travel off the beaten track to reach your campsite in the sandy riverbed, between high walls of rock. From here you can take walks in the hills and explore the area with your guide, keeping your eyes open for desert-adapted elephant that frequent the river.
Mowani Foothills
Here your private campsite is dwarfed by the huge granite boulders that surround it. This is superb scenery and great walking country overlooking the ephemeral Aba-Huab River. It's the perfect location for easy access to Twyfelfontein's vast gallery of rock art (now a UNESCO World Heritage Site) and southern Damaraland's many other attractions. Your guide also knows off-road tracks around the Aba-Huab River, where you can search for signs of desert-adapted elephant and other game.
Palmwag Concession
We can arrange for you to have your own private mobile camp at a remote location in the Palmwag Concession. This 4,500 km2 private reserve has a number of freshwater springs that support strong populations of game, including desert-adapted elephant, the rare Hartmann's mountain zebra, giraffe, oryx, springbok and kudu. Predators such as lion, cheetah, leopard, brown and spotted hyena are occasionally seen here too. The speciality of the area is its growing population of rare black rhino, the largest concentration in the world outside a national park. The rhino here are monitored and protected by the Save the Rhino Trust and you may be lucky enough to see one during your drive.
Swakopmund to Ugab, including Cape Cross: approx. 4.5 hours (320km)
Swakopmund to Mowani, including Cape Cross: approx. 6 hours (415km)
Mowani to Palmwag: approx. 3 hours (150km)
Includes breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Day 10 - Western Etosha National Park
It's another day of great scenery as you drive to the western side of Etosha National Park, Namibia's primary game reserve. The higher concentration of wildlife here makes game viewing the focus of your days. The western side of Etosha is restricted exclusively to those staying at Dolomite Camp or on safari with a registered Namibian tour operator and guide. You enter at Etosha's western Galton Gate and proceed on to Dolomite Camp where you will stay overnight. The Camp lies amongst dolomite rock formations, with walkways linking the thatched en-suite rooms to an inviting restaurant and bar area. Each room and balcony offers sweeping views across the surrounding savannah.
This evening you will be treated to an exciting spot-lit night drive, giving you the opportunity to see Etosha's nocturnal residents such as bat-eared fox, porcupine, genet, aardvark and, if you are exceptionally lucky, larger carnivores hunting.
Mowani to Western Etosha: approx. 4.5 hours (300 km)
Palmwag to Western Etosha: approx. 4.5 hours (240km)
Includes breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Days 11 & 12 - South-western Etosha National Park
After breakfast you set off in an easterly direction through Etosha for another superb day of game driving, arriving at Okaukuejo Resort in the afternoon. Here you will stay two nights, using the resort as your base to go out on game drives at your leisure. After dinner and drinks each evening, don't forget to check out the floodlit waterhole here; it gets regular wildlife visits including elephant, black rhino and lion.
Safari drives
Includes breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Days 13 & 14 - Okonjima
Option of an early morning game drive around waterholes near Okaukuejo before you exit Etosha at Andersson Gate and travel through the farming towns of Outjo and Otjiwarongo to reach Okonjima. This is home to the AfriCat Foundation, which was created to help conserve Namibia's cheetah and other big cats. Your Namibia safari guide will ensure you are comfortably settled in before continuing on to Windhoek. Okonjima's guides will take you on all the activities here, such as visits to the cheetah welfare project, leopard tracking by vehicle, cheetah and spotted hyena tracking on foot, game drives, an educational Bushman walking trail and visits to a night hide.
South-western Etosha to Okonjima: approx. 3.5 hours (250km)
Includes breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Day 15 - Windhoek
There's time to enjoy a last activity and a delicious brunch at Okonjima before you are collected for the return transfer to Windhoek. Back in Windhoek, you can relax, explore the city center and do any last-minute shopping at the craft center and street stalls. Overnight in your guesthouse accommodation.
Okonjima to Windhoek: approx. 3 hours (215km)
Includes breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Day 16 - Flight to London
After some free time in Windhoek, you are collected from your guesthouse and driven to the airport in time to depart on your scheduled flight to London.
Includes breakfast. Dinner is on the flight.
Day 17 - Arrive in London
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